Video: Subtracting and transforming shapes

I've saved my progress as Shapes so far, found inside the 27_pen_tool folder. Thus far, we have added a series of shapes in order to fill out the light bulb. We've got two rectangles, one vertical, one horizontal. We've got one ginormous circle, and then two smaller circles on either side of the vertical rectangle. In this exercise, we are going to begin subtracting from our shapes in order to create this contoured edge along the left side and the right side of the light bulb. Now, this is going to involve not only subtracting one shape from another, but it's also going to involve a little bit of transforming shapes, that is, scaling and rotating them.

In the all-new Photoshop CS5 One-on-One: Mastery, the third and final installment of the popular series, join industry expert and award-winning author Deke McClelland for an in-depth tour of the most powerful and empowering features of Photoshop CS5. Discover the vast possibilities of traditional tools, such as masking and blend modes, and then delve into Smart Objects, Photomerge, as well as the new Puppet Warp, Mixer Brush, and HDR features. Exercise files accompany the course.

Subtracting and transforming shapes

I've saved my progress as Shapes so far, found inside the 27_pen_tool folder.Thus far, we have added a series of shapes in order to fill out the light bulb.We've got two rectangles, one vertical, one horizontal.We've got one ginormous circle, and then two smaller circles on either side ofthe vertical rectangle.In this exercise, we are going to begin subtracting from our shapes in orderto create this contoured edge along the left side and the right side of the light bulb.Now, this is going to involve not only subtracting one shape from another,but it's also going to involve a little bit of transforming shapes, that is,scaling and rotating them.

When we get into the transformation territory, Photoshop starts havingscreen redraw problems.So, I'm just warning you about that upfront.If somehow you're not seeing what you should see on screen, just bear in mindthat it's fairly normal behavior for the program right now.Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and scroll over to the left-hand side of theimage a little bit.I'm going to grab my Ellipse tool, because we're going to be cutting a circleout of this area right there for starters.I'm going to switch to the Subtract Mode, so that we'd go about subtractingright off the bat from our existing shape.

So I'll switch to Subtract Mode.I should still see the Paths option selected.If it isn't selected for you, it may be because your vector mask is not active.So, make sure that it is here inside the Layers panel.Then, I'm going to drag with the tool like so, and I'm going to press theShift key as I come in closer on that side of the shape, and I just forced anauto-scroll, which is unfortunate, because now I can't really see what I'm doing.But that's okay, once I get it more or less aligned like so, I'll go ahead andrelease, and I had the Shift key down the entire time, by the way, so I releasedthe mouse button first, and then released the Shift key.

Sure enough, that circle is not big enough.I'm going to go ahead and select the Black Arrow tool, the Path Selection tool if you like.I'll click on the circle to select it.Then I'll go up to the Edit menu and I'll choose Free Transform Path.So notice as soon as you're working with a path outline, whether it's a shapeoutline what have you, it's going to say Free Transform Path to indicate thatyou're transforming a vector outline as opposed to pixels.It still has the same keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+T, Cmd+T on the Mac.I'm going to move the transformation origin over here to the right-hand point,so it snaps into alignment.

Then, while I drag this upper-left point, and I'm going to give myself a littlemore room to work, I'm going to press the Shift and Alt keys.The Shift key because I want to constrain the proportions to a circle, the Altkey or the Option key on a Mac, because I want to scale with respect to thattransformation origin.All right, once I get about there, it looks like I have matched the edge pretty well.Now, this is a great example of how Photoshop does not keep up with your pathoutline transformations. It just doesn't.It's completely baffling, but it doesn't show things properly.

We are doing things properly, don't worry about that.It's just that the screen redraw is not keeping up.Now, you would expect that when you press the Enter key or the Return key inorder to apply the transformation, then Photoshop would get with the program,but it doesn't. Now, notice over here in this little thumbnail, if you'reseeing your thumbnails, and it very much helps to see them, which means thatif you have smaller thumbnails going inside the Layers panel, I very much urgeyou to right-click in this lower region, where there are no layers, and choose Large Thumbnails.That way you can keep track of what's going on, at least a little bit, withyour vector outlines.

Notice that I am cutting in just fine, so the screen redraw is out of whack.When I zoom out to a certain level, notice it shapes up. It says, oh yes!I'm sorry.That's where your edge really is.Unfortunately, when you zoom back in, it gets it wrong again.So, that's a little bit of a problem.We'll take care of it in a moment, but for now, we're just going to abide.I need to move this path outline over a little bit.I don't know what yours looks like, but mine is too far over to the left.So, I'm going to press the arrow key a couple of times to nudge it to the rightlike so, and then I'll zoom back out.

It looks like we've got this guy pretty much in the right position.We can always adjust that later once we get things roughed in a little bit, ifwe need to take that edge farther inward.Okay, what about this edge right there?Well, that remaining area from about here to about here is more or less astraight line, actually.So, I'm going to try to render it out using a rotated rectangle, which meansit's going to require another transformation, which means we can anticipatefurther screen redraw issues.

But as I say, we'll take care of that momentarily.All right, so I'll switch over to the Rectangle tool, and then I'll just draw me a rectangle.It doesn't matter where it is, because it's nowhere near right.It should be set to Subtract though, which it is, so everything's good there.We're further subtracting from the shapes.I'll go back to my Black Arrow tool.I'll click on that rectangle in order to select it, and then I'll move it intoposition right there.It's that intersection that I'm looking for, I think.I think this is going to work out for us.Actually, it could be a little lower, couldn't it?I guess I'm going from the wrong area, I guess about right there is where thelight bulb starts cutting away from that circle.

So that's what we want them at.We essentially want to create a straight edge that's tangent.In the case you don't know what tangent means, imagine that you have a straightline resting on a ball.That would be a tangent line, because it's just sitting on the ball, andthe line is straight.So it's barely touching the circle of the ball.Anyway, it's right there.It'll cleave off of that circle and then meet onto that circle there.We're going to do that using, of course, the transformation.Now, you'll just have to take my word for it.This rectangle is still the same, because we can't see the corner points right now.

I'm going to press Ctrl+T or Cmd+T on the Mac to re-invoke thatFree Transform command.I'm going to move my transformation origin right there, and then I'll move mycursor outside the rectangle and drag in order to rotate it until it comes intoposition at that location.So, this is a good tangent line, it looks to me.It just barely touches the top circle, and it just barely touches the bottom circle.Now, it goes too far.It cuts into the light bulb down right here, but I'm unconcerned with thatbecause we can move the rectangle to a different location.

So, I'm going to press the Enter key or the Return key on the Mac, and watch indisappointment and horror, as the screen does not redraw properly.All right, anyway, I'm now going to move my shape upward, because I still havethe Black Arrow tool selected.I'll move it to about there, so that we still have a nice tangent edge, and loand behold we still have a little bit of an issue up here.Now that's not Photoshop's problem.That's not a redraw problem. That's my problem.I need to solve it.I'm going to do so by transforming a shape, and I'll show you which shape it isthat we're going to transform, as well as show you how to go about flipping andduplicating these shapes over here on the left-hand side in order to cut awaythis region on the right- hand side, in the next exercise.

Learn by watching, listening, and doing, Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along Premium memberships include access to all exercise files in the library.

Already a member ?

Learn by watching, listening, and doing! Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along. Exercise files are available with all Premium memberships.
Learn more

Upgrade to our Annual Premium Membership today and get even more value from your lynda.com subscription:

“In a way, I feel like you are rooting for me. Like you are really invested in my experience, and want me to get as much out of these courses as possible this is the best place to start on your journey to learning new material.”— Nadine H.

Thanks for signing up.

We’ll send you a confirmation email shortly.

Sign up and receive emails about lynda.com and our online training library:

new course releases

newsletter

general communications

special notices

Here’s our privacy policy with more details about how we handle your information.

Keep up with news, tips, and latest courses with emails from lynda.com.

Sign up and receive emails about lynda.com and our online training library:

new course releases

newsletter

general communications

special notices

Here’s our privacy policy with more details about how we handle your information.